Florian (25 page)

The Emperor, with the Heir Apparent at his left, sat in the stately carosse which Karl VI had built. The resplendent body of the coach hung on immense, wide belts, shaking lightly on the springs. The wood of the carriage doors, which had been painted by masters of the Baroque, reached only as far as the white damask of the seats. Large crystal panes sparkled on both sides, and their frames bore the top. Thus the Emperor and his heir sat in a moving show-window. Lips sealed, they sat side by side. They had nothing to say to each other. Both might have been thinking of the faraway time when Franz Joseph had driven to St. Stephan's in this very carriage accompanied by the Crown Prince. To both of them it must have appeared as God's will that Rudolf slept for over twenty years at the Capuchines.

But each of them interpreted God's will differently.

That was the high wall that separated them as they sat so close together, driving through the stationary rows of troops, amidst the city's multitudes kept in order by the soldiery.

Shouts and
vivas
arose, a cloud of sound which rolled along the way of the Emperor.

On the frame of the carosse, between the gilded wooden springs, on a board inside the high lacquered wheels, stood three lackeys clad in gala livery, wearing tricornes on their white perukes. They held fast to the wide fringed belts which were there for that purpose. The richly draped driver's box, in front, was occupied by Konrad Gruber, who also wore the gala livery, the tricorne and the peruke. His coppery face was horizontally cleaved by tightly closed lips; his eyes, contracted into narrow slits, were all attention and care. In his hands he held the reins of the eight stallions. These eight Lipizzans were richly caparisoned in gold and purple, and carried bouquets of waving white ostrich plumes between their ears. Each was led by a stableman holding onto a wide gold ribbon.

Anton held the ribbon in the ordained manner. One hand high up near the bridle, the other hand letting the dangling ribbon play freely enough to preserve its decorative line. He was ever on the alert, for Florian kept raising and lowering his beautiful head in a proud gesture that made the crest of ostrich plumes nod impressively.

The horses walked slowly in measured strides. For Florian this was still another festal pageant, the most gorgeous and the most solemn he had yet lived through. The silvery fanfares of the heralds, at the van and rear of the procession, alternately blowing the general march, sounded like tones turned into sunbeams. The pealing of the church bells sent a solemn clangor rushing high through the air. The
vivas
burst forth wherever Florian appeared and enveloped him in warm invisible waves.

Florian gazed everywhere, enchanted. His shimmering, dark eyes took on an expression of complete rapture, as he walked on, the Kohlmarkt, the Graben, the Stephansplatz floating together into an indistinct picture of unearthly splendor.

He gave himself up altogether to the triumph he took to be his own and Capitano's. He walked with chained fire, with spirits difficult to quell; walked in the cadenced gait of the Spanish School. He would have loved to rise on his hindlegs, to show what magnificent feats he could do; would have loved to prance and share his happiness, his joy of living, with the onlookers. But there was the rein to which he had to submerge his sparkling mood. Thus did his blood respond.

And there was Anton, who was fired by the joy flaming in each movement of Florian's muscles and rippling along the ribbon halter, and who held Florian back from his passionate impulses with a tender loving hand.

Anton couldn't see much. Only the petals strewn along the route of march, only Florian's neck and restless head. Before his eyes, too, swam blurred and indistinct the rows of soldiers, the packed humanity. The pageantry and tumult stunned him.

Behind the State carosse rode the equerry and Franz Joseph's adjutants. In other carriages, drawn by teams of six horses, came the archdukes. And back of them a swarm of pages in light costumes; noble youths, gay, carefree and proud; boys who were aware that someday they would rule the realm as their fathers and forefathers had ruled it once. They were followed by the Hungarian Guard on horseback, their unsheathed curved sabers in their hands, garbed in gold-embroidered coats, skin-tight breeches, saffian boots and gem-encrusted bandoliers, and wearing panther-skins across one shoulder, fastened on their breasts with jeweled buckles. On their heads they had brown bearskin caps crested by white aigrettes.

Bringing up the rear came a squadron of Dragoons in their high-slung parade helmets.

Before St. Stephan's came a long halt. Meanwhile, the procession, which had a long way to go and many altar stations to pass, finished its circuit. The State carosse stopped at the side of the church. Gruber remained motionless seated throughout.

Anton passed the hours in soft talk to Florian, in quieting him.

The way back was, for Florian, a hotly desired repetition of this colorful parade.

Afterward, leaving the Imperial Palace and returning by way of the Maria Theresia monument to the stables, gay military music sounded behind them, accentuated by the tireless beat of the big drum. The metallic broad
tzing
of the cymbals ripped through the rousing strains of the Radetzky march. These were the troops that had stood in double rows along the route of the procession and had paraded by Franz Joseph in the inner court.

Florian began to dance.

T
HE YEAR CIRCLED. IT STOLE along on the chill dark of the winter, donned the vernal garb of a fairy spring like a young girl preparing for her first ball . . . and then the summer came and brought the burning sun, the glowing sky; summer early ripe and voluptuous. All the world indulged in the reckless sensation of being alive. Only few sensed, and fewer foresaw, the impending disaster.

It was a fateful summer.

Bosco did not live to see it. That may mean nothing in the world of men, in the world of more or less important events. Nothing whatever. A dog. Small, white, with black spots on his head and back. A terrier—there are more than enough of them—belonging to the son of a peasant who had become a stableman. That this little dog was clever, staunch of faith, pure of soul, that within his breast could be found no trace of suspicion, of egotism, of falsehood, that he was finer and more companionable than many a man, could mean nothing to anyone.

Only Florian, the Lipizzan stallion, answered Bosco's abiding love with love. Only Anton, his savior, was attached to this dog.

It was when Bosco, at the beginning of the winter, bumped into the wall a few times and missed the stable door, that Anton noticed he had lost his sight. He had grown old, this once lively Bosco. Old and lame. He jumped and ran no longer in his impetuous way. On stiff legs he crept along slowly and timidly, ventured only a few steps into the yard and then returned to the stable and Florian. No gay antics did he perform for the benefit of his great white friend. Instead he stood quietly at his hooves, sniffed his legs and whispered soundlessly up at him. Florian bent his head far down to his little comrade, blew his warm breath over the spotted head and evidenced his distress over the little one's pains and aches.

When the terrier occasionally raised his voice it sounded hoarse and had no jubilant ring in it. Sometimes he cried quietly. He sighed when he lay down, sighed when he curled up to sleep. The sole expression of his love, of his willingness, of his enthusiasm was his silent laughter: his wagging. That alone he preserved. He wagged spiritedly when Anton discovered that he was blind, lifted him in comforting arms and set him down by his plate. He wagged while he ate. He wagged when Anton pressed him to his breast as he had done in the dim days of Lipizza.

Again and again Anton murmured: “Don't mind it, Bosco, don't mind it.”

Once in the course of the winter Anton gathered up the courage to show Bosco to the veterinary on the latter's regular round of the stables. The veterinary gave the dog one glance and said briefly: “What do you want with the cur? Have him killed. It's time.”

He did not see how Anton writhed under these words, under this disdainful death sentence. When the veterinary had gone, Anton carried Bosco to Florian, stood next his white friend with his blind dog in his coiled arm and said softly: “What do you know . . . what do you know!”

He let Bosco wash his face with his tongue, and Florian's, too.

When the spring sun laughed across the world and grew steadily warmer, Anton led the dog carefully into the open, as carefully as one teaches a child to walk; there he prepared a cushioned bed for him, and laid the feeble little terrier down to let the sun warm his tired body. Bosco sighed deeply or whimpered to himself. He heard everything, he smelled everything. When Anton approached to see to him, Bosco wagged his tail at the first sound of his steps, and beat the cushion with his tail as cheerfully as he could.

As often as Anton carried the dog outside, Florian followed them to the end of the stall and peered after them with grateful eyes. When they returned he received them effusively and bent down to Bosco as if to ask: “Was it nice? And how do you feel?”

Sometimes, although more rarely than of old—for Franz Joseph drove but seldom—it happened that Florian and Capitano left in the morning and stayed away until late in the forenoon. When they returned and were unhitched, Capitano walked right into the stable, but Florian stood for quite a while at Bosco's couch. There, with wagging tail and solicitous snorts, they held a brief, friendly conversation.

Well into May, one night, Florian awoke, disquieted, got up, and after sniffing Bosco all over began to snort loudly. Anton was on stable watch. Hearing Florian, he left his cot and came running.

Bosco lay on his side near his accustomed place; he seemed quite flat, almost flush with the ground; his head was buried in the straw and a cramp convulsed his limbs intermittently.

As far as space permitted, Florian stood aside, pressed against the wall. His large eyes were full of fear, his mien ghastly, his bearing showing every trace of horror.

Bosco tried to groan but emitted only half-strangled sounds. So he wagged his tail feebly. It was like an apology and a farewell.

Man thinks animals know nothing about death and dying. And sometimes this appears to be true. But it probably only looks that way and is one of the errors resulting from man's overbearing attitude. Because man does not understand their language, he thinks animals cannot talk. Because man does not understand the behavior of dumb creatures and does not admit gifts of the spirit and of the soul in them, he explains all things by the one word, “instinct,” a word that has become well-nigh meaningless and is basically arid of meaning. Man discerns only the very last desperate awe in expiring animals, if he does that. And thus he is convinced that the beast knows nothing about annihilation and has no knowledge of death.

Yet Florian knew well that death was at work close by him. The quiet battle, in which Bosco was to be the loser, had roused him from his sleep, while Anton has had to be awakened by his snorts.

Bosco wagged weakly. The cramps ceased. A trembling shot through his frame. Then he grew taut. With a clumsy motion Anton, kneeling down, eased Bosco's head and looked into his vacant eyes.

“Over,” he whispered. “Over.”

Florian, who never shied, seemed about to lose control of his nerves. With minced and hesitating steps he neared his dead friend, bowed his head, inhaled and reared back sharply. Anton could not calm him; the horse pressed out of the stall, looked around with wild eyes, rose on his hindlegs, threatened to jump over Anton. Anton had to give in. He had to lead Florian to the other end of the stable and open an unused stall.

Morning dawned.

Anton carried poor Bosco outside. For the last time he held the cold, white little bundle in his arms. Not a word passed his lips, his face showed nothing. His sorrow lay deep in his breast, tore at him like a flame; it could not find expression, it sought no outward expression.

Florian did not lie down again. His nervousness did not abate as the dawn grew into the new day. Hour followed hour. When the sun shone full through the window, Anton, who stood leaning against the horse's neck, told him slowly:

“Now we two are alone.”